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In the Riyadh meeting, the US and Russia agree to ‘lay the groundwork’ for ending the Ukraine war.
Following four-and-a-half hours of negotiations in Riyadh on Tuesday, the US State Department said the two sides would appoint “high-level teams” to seek to end the war and establish a diplomatic channel to resolve bilateral issues.
The US and Russia talks marked an extraordinary turn of events after US President Donald Trump called Putin last week to end the war — without consulting Ukraine or its European allies.
Ending the Ukraine war
“This needs to be a permanent end to the war and not a temporary end as we’ve seen in the past,” said US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, who accompanied Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff at the talks.
Tuesday’s meeting in Riyadh was the first of its kind between the US and Russia since Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
In a sight almost unthinkable even a few weeks ago, Russian and US flags flew next to each other outside the opulent palace where the meeting took place.
“The practical reality is that there’s going to be some discussion of territory and there’s going to be discussion of security guarantees, those are just fundamental basics,” Waltz added, noting that Trump was “determined to move very quickly”.
In language largely echoed by the Russian side, the US State Department said the new diplomatic channel between the two countries would “lay the groundwork for future co-operation on matters of mutual geopolitical interest and historic economic and investment opportunities”
following an end to the Ukraine war. Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, told the Financial Times the two sides had discussed “restoring economic ties in those areas which are of mutual interest”.
